Why should anyone worry about agents of the Muslim Brotherhood creeping in the back windows of the State Department, when President Obama has invited them to the front door of the White House? This is a time to unify the Republican Party, not split it, and Rep. Michele Bachmann’s misstep in the Huma Abedin affair weakened the Republican side. The way to win is to attack Barack Obama directly for coddling the Muslim Brotherhood. Nobody said it better than Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post:

Two weeks ago, in an unofficial inauguration ceremony at Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi took off his mask of moderation. Before a crowd of scores of thousands, Mursi pledged to work for the release from US federal prison of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman. According to The New York Times’ account of his speech, Mursi said, “I see signs [being held by members of the crowd] for Omar Abdel-Rahman and detainees’ pictures. It is my duty and I will make all efforts to have them free, including Omar Abdel-Rahman.”

Otherwise known as the blind sheikh, Abdel Rahman was the mastermind of the jihadist cell in New Jersey that perpetrated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. His cell also murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York in 1990. They plotted the assassination of then-president Hosni Mubarak. They intended to bomb New York landmarks including the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the UN headquarters. Rahman was the leader of Gama’a al-Islamia – the Islamic Group, responsible, among other things for the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. A renowned Sunni religious authority, Rahman wrote the fatwa, or Islamic ruling, permitting Sadat’s murder in retribution for his signing the peace treaty with Israel. The Islamic group is listed by the State Department as a specially designated terrorist organization.

After his conviction in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Abdel-Rahman issued another fatwa calling for jihad against the US. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, Osama bin Laden cited Abdel-Rahman’s fatwa as the religious justification for them. By calling for Abdel-Rahman’s release, Mursi has aligned himself and his government with the US’s worst enemies. By calling for Abdel-Rahman’s release during his unofficial inauguration ceremony, Mursi signaled that he cares more about winning the acclaim of the most violent, America-hating jihadists in the world than with cultivating good relations with America.

And in response to Mursi’s supreme act of unfriendliness, US President Barack Obama invited Mursi to visit him at the White House.

UPDATE: Mohammed Morsi has just pardoned 25 convicted Egyptian terrorists from Jama’a al-Islamiya and Islamic Jihard, according to the Egypt Independent:

Mohamed al-Zawahiri, brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, has said that the 572 military detainees pardoned by President Mohamed Morsy on Thursday included 25 leaders of Islamic Jihad and Jama’a al-Islamiya [the organization led by the "Blind Sheikh" Abdul Rahman, convicted of the first World Trade Center bombing].

Jama’a al-Islamiya engaged in armed confrontations with security forces in the 1990s, aiming to depose the Mubarak regime and establish an Islamic state. In the late 1990s it renounced its violent, jihadist ideology, and apologized for its attacks that had killed hundreds. Its members were targeted by the intelligence services, but since the 25 January uprising many have been released from prison and it now has a political arm, the Construction and Development Party. Islamic Jihad, which was led in the 1990s by Ayman al-Zawahiri, also renounced violence some years ago [and if you believe this, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you].

Morsi supports the deadliest terrorist in an American jail, and has just pardoned two dozen of his convicted terrorist minions. Obama invites him to the White House. That’s something the voters can understand. And that’s where Republicans should focus their fire, not on the murky case of Hillary Clinton’s long-time assistant Huma Abedin. Unless Rep. Michele Bachmann et. al. have a smoking gun case against Ms. Abedin, they should stop wasting their time. Yes, Ms. Abedin has family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. But she’s also married to a liberal Jew, former Congressman Anthony Weiner, with whom she is seen pushing a baby carriage in a photo in the July 18 New York Post. The Weiner-Abedin household made it into a People magazine profile this weekend. That’s what the voters will see, to the extent they bother. The fact is that no-one cares about Ms. Abedin. For that matter, no-one cares about Hillary Clinton. There’s one issue in this election, and that is Barack Obama.

Inviting the blind sheikh’s backer to the White House: there’s no ambiguity there. It speaks for itself. Barack Obama wants the Muslim world to succeed as an article of faith, and will embrace elected Islamists no matter how outrageously they behave towards the United States. By embracing the odious Mr. Morsi, Obama is doing the Republicans a big favor. If he offers Morsi any aid, he’ll be doing us an even bigger favor.

Morsi’s visit to the White House also puts the likes of John McCain on the defensive–to the extent that matters. The failed 2008 presidential candidate came off as a gentleman and man of honor defending Ms. Abedin against what seem to be rather murky and indirect charges. The bad news is that McCain still believes that Arab democracy will support American interests. Along with Sen. Joe Lieberman, he sent a congratulatory message to Morsi the moment that election results were announced June 24:

“The Egyptian people have spoken,” the senators said in a joint statement, “and we respect their choice and look forward to working with President-elect Morsi in a spirit of mutual respect and in pursuit of the many shared interests of the United States and Egypt.”

176 Comments, 74 Threads

1.
alsch

Spengler for Secretary of State. Brilliant analysis. Always helps me crystallize my own thoughts. I always felt George W. Bush damaged the Republican party and America. He gave us Obama. His father gave us Clinton.

John Bolton for President!….or anything else high profile that he’d accept.

Look at these three, not all at the same time, that’d be really sickening….but just look and think…

A.] Susan Rice as U. S. “Representative”! at the U. N.

B.] Holder as Attorney General

C.] This Obama chameleon as …..President of the U. S.

In all my eighty years (…as I’m wont to brag…) I’ve never experienced such a disastrous, shameful, and outright dangerous triad in office at the same time.

Never.

…..remember, dear Readers, that that same 52% who so unthinkingly put Obama in the Oval Office are still out there, robotic, waiting to vote again….just a-waitin’ to stick it to th’ Establishment again.

My neighbor received a call from dem. poll the other day. Neighbor asked the poll taker some questions for which poller had no clue i.e. Solyndra and basic news issues. It is an uninformed or ignorant electorate. One would have hoped that someone working for a campaign would have some idea. Nope.

Just one small clarification, Mr. Griffith. Keep remembering that Obama was elected by only 30% of registered voters. There was a 58% turnout and of the people who actually voted, 52% voted for Obama. Multiply 0.58 and 0.52 and you get 0.30. Just 30% of registered voters saddled us with Obama. Forget about the polls and just vote.

Widespread ambiguity continues to exist because it speaks for itself only when it’s looked at. Rep. Michele Bachman tried to speak for it, to point it out, and now she’s mincemeat. The local newspapers up here in Minnesota only too happily did a world class hatchet job on her last week, by hammering on how bigoted, insensitive and racist her statements were, and of course also by not evaluating whether the statements were factual.

I always felt George W. Bush damaged the Republican party and America.

Yes, he did it by making the single most damaging and stupidest statement every made by a sitting American president: Islam is a religion of peace.

Boy, talk about totally blowing a critical opportunity.

Maybe Rep. Issa should call in that Hafiz dude Prez Barack Hussein employers at the White House to have him explain the contents of the Holy Ko-Ran.

The whole country is waiting for what may turn out to be the much anticipated “October Surprise”. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t be looking for the Janteenth suprise. This would be a pardon from Obama for the blind sheik. I can see it happening for compassionate reasons.

Mr. Goldman, your analysis cristalizes my quite spontaneous reaction to a TACTICAL error on the part some fine Republican politicians. The consequences will be to deflect attention from OBAMA and his discomforting WH-frontdoor affair with Brotherhood Islam. That relationship, as you note, should be played up in the imagery of a campaign. And I would add to this political imaging Obama’s bowing to the Saudi potentate. What a distasteful photo! Nevertheless, I have read some discussions in “FrontPage” and elsewhere of the Abedin affair along with references to a wider context with the result that I remain tentatively convinced that there is smoke there wothy of being checked out for a heinous fire–but NOT now and not as proferring Obama with the means of directing campaign issues away from himself and his record. So, I repeat my acceptance of your thesis, my regret that Bachmann, etc. have led to a distraction, and much sorrow because it weakens the political THRUST of the campaign–all this on a TACTICAL level. But, what about the STRATEGIC level. I briefly state my position.

I have no doubt that FDR was NOT a communist or even a sympathizer with Communism (I doubt he took that -ism seriously). Nevertheless, under influence of Hopkins, White and the minions of pro-Soviet advisors, if not communistic believers in the State Dept., FDR betrayed the Free Polish and others by turning over Eastern Europe to Stalin leading to the unnecessarily unfavorable (for the USA) conditions under which the Cold (and not so cold) War began. FDR’s TACTICAL failures had longterm STRATEGIC consequences. I once read all of McCarthy’s speeches and, despite any rantings, that Republican Senator revealed some very doubtful decisions by the State Dept. Some years later, James Burnham, never inclined to propagandistic analyses, published his “Web of Subversion” in which he traced, as far as evidence allowed, subversive factors interwining through out the US gov. Burnham’s summary analysis was based upon the “facts” turned up by governmental bodies of investigation. Why my return to the “subversive” moments in FDR’s longterm STRATEGIC accommodations to Sovietism? Is it relevant as a caveat to your analysis of the TACTICAl distraction caused by the Abedin affaire? I think so. Consider:

FDR’s meetings with Stalin could be compared with Obama’s inviting the Brotherhood Morsi frontdoor-wise into the White House. FDR’s invite entailed the correlative baggage of allowing penetration of the State Dept. and elsewhere of advisors who would STRATEGICALLY weaken the USA. I wonder at this point whether history might be repeating itself. Without governmental investigations Burnham could never have written his exposition. Thanks to the happy warrior McCain and some accommplices in the GOP the opportunity for collection of information is being abrogated here and now, no matter how TACTICALLY useful silence might be for a compaign against Obama. Will there ever be, or can there ever be, a James Burnham in the future? What might be the longterm effects of a penetration into advisory circles of the government (or the correlative exclusion of consideration of Islamism from the FBI, CIA, etc.)? I shutter.

Aside: Your mention the “liberal” Jew Wiener. Other than his disgusting behavior I know nothing about the man. Your use of “liberal” to qualify a political Jew, however, rings a bell with me. In the pages of PJM and in some Jewish sources (e.g., the Jerusalem Post) consulted regularly I have read articles about the “Israel hating Jew”. I must say that the adjective “liberal” seems to me to be descriptively applicable to such Jews. I am making no aspersions relative to Wiener (I know nothing about his politics), but I just wonder if being a “liberal Jew” is an automatic disqualification of a friendly orientation to the politics of an Egyptian bride with such Brotherhood connections? I wonder and no more. I also wonder if my reflections here have not entered into your mind?

Summary: Your tactical critique is highly relevant and sadly all too correct. With my historical memory concerning the Soviet days, I cannot repress the scary intuition that the images of Obama bowing to a Saudi or of Obama inviting a Brotherhood supporter of a mass murderer contain a STRATEGIC depth that portends enormous negative consequences in the long run. Thank God, FDR was replaced by Harry Truman. I shutter at the idea that McCain & Co might hinder the replacement of Barack HUSSEIN Obama with Mit Romney. That would be McCain’s fully legal betrayal of the GOP and longterm welfare of the USA.

Thank you for writing this:
….”With my historical memory concerning the Soviet days, I cannot repress the scary intuition that the images of Obama bowing to a Saudi or of Obama inviting a Brotherhood supporter of a mass murderer contain a STRATEGIC depth that portends enormous negative consequences in the long run.”

We need much more such historical memory voicing today’s reality. We’ve got a serious problem here, right this hour, in our America with the electronically truncated attention spans of the last fifteen years or so effected by these massed double-edged hand held ‘tweetering’ gadgets held and operated by twits…..so called ‘adult’ twits.

The obvious parallels between Soviet infiltration and penetration of our government of that era with today’s permissive, disastrously ‘political correct’ inclusion of our declared enemy…Muslim Islam, or Islamic Muslim-ism, all in the callow, crass name of ‘diversity’, should be seen by all in responsible positions ……but, alas, are not.

Our contemporary American Publick are blindsided by being intimidated by the strident cries of bigotry and racism…….they simply are spreading ostrich feathers all over the place….our place.

McCain and Graham, et al are certainly free to put down Michel Bachmann and company (I don’t, as I think their case is valid and very professionally presented) for their tactical maneuverings but they do so without apparent qualification. That is, they do not use the opportunity as a springboard to a direct attack on the involvement of the Obama administration generally in this affair. They don’t even say “while we agree with Rep. Bachmann and others in substance…” as a qualifier for their disagreement. Instead, much to the delight of Democrats and RINOs, they weaken these dedicated conservative individuals by leaving them open to charges of being over-the-top Tea Party reactionaries which, I believe, is exactly where McCain and Graham wish to position them. John McCain is an even bigger loser than he was in 2008. He has become a hero in the “old fool” sense to the MSM and will lose the election for us again if he can.

The Bush Republicans have real trouble admitting how much damage they caused. If you were in their shoes, would you easily admit to yourself that you sacrificed thousands of American lives for a failed policy? Don’t expect a change of heart. But it’s not the time for Republicans to take potshots at each other. That’s why all efforts should be directed at exposing Obama’s outrageous coddling of anti-American, pro-terrorist Islamists. Forget Bush and McCain.

We need to admit that the Bush Freedom Agenda was a noble failure as quickly as possible and kill it, rather than let it drag on as long as that supposedly noble failure of the 20th century did. Middle Easterners need a list of Things America Won’t Tolerate, and find their leaders from whatever’s not on the list.

We do not yet know how the democratic experiment in Iraq and Afghanistan will play out.

After the battle of Teutoberg forest Roman pundits might have despaired of bringing civilization to Europe. Centuries later it looks like the Romans won after all. I was going to list the examples but I’m sure you know more of them than I do. Senators spouting Latin phrases. Generals who can quote Marcus Aurelius. White man’s burden and all that.

I’m not sure it was Rome that civilized Europe so much as it was Christianity. When the Western Empire fell, it was the Church that picked up the pieces and set about mission-work, converting the pagans. I’m still not convinced the Iraq war is a failure, but I like Christ’s policies even better than I do W’s. The One True God wants men to be free.

and here -http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/14/the-redgreen-alliance-the-ties-that-bind-hillary-clinton-huma-abedin-compromise-us-national-security-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki-36/

NOTE: my bread crumb trail starts with my commentary ‘Six Degrees of Separation’, simply because that is whereby a little birdy (in a position to know,who shall remain nameless) whispered in my ear, regarding all of the above.

Moreover, my blog is rife with other tidbits…seek and you shall find. None of what I have written is hyperbole, though very shocking. The readers can ‘take it to the bank’.

David, I am leaving the ‘smoking guns’ in the hands of others, simply because their revelations will have so much greater impact. I am, shall we say, a ‘connector of dots’ for a certain targeted audience.

Think of it this way – if someone wants to gain the attention of those who clearly do not want to pay attention, who better to make them do so, than those whose clout is already on the public’s radar? Big fish…medium fish…small fish.

I think you-and others-know what I am getting at. Besides, not everybody is in charge in the operating room. The chief surgeon wields the biggest scalpel, yet needs the entire team to close the case.

but like Mr. Goldman states obama is the problem ..Huma is just a symptom.

like the calls for Holder’s resignation. as Holder stated he is just obama’s proxy. sadly the media …blogs left and right don’t get the significance of the TOP law official of the country to call himself a proxy is damning.

Why is Shoebat’s English list with Abedin’s mother on it gone down a 404 memory hole? The issue is now, not tomorrow. If you have something, best to bring it now or other wise it’s crying wolf and the second time around no one will look, including me. Once burnt, twice shy.

Why should we trust the Republican establishment, one that has rolled like pet poodles for virtually every un-constitutional action by this increasingly totalitarian President? Were it not for Michelle Bachmann, we would never know about this Beltway capitulation to militant Islam.

Because more than one link causes the spam filter to kick your post to the human filter. The human filter is one busy MF’r. I think that you should pay PJ Media if you are going to link to your blog and advertise it in EVERY post you put in the comments. It is very rude and uncalled for as the hosts here give you a spot to link to your website and believe it or not people do click those links to see who is posting and what they are all on about.

I think that you should pay PJ Media if you are going to link to your blog and advertise it in EVERY post you put in the comments. It is very rude and uncalled for as the hosts here give you a spot to link to your website….

AGREED! It’s just flat-out annoying to find posts containing an exhortation to “visit my blog”. Adina Kutnicki does it, Claire Spark has been doing it for ages, “Apollo Speaks” has been fairly low profile lately but used to do it very regularly.

While I used to enjoy reading Adina’s posts because they were actually on-topic and interesting, now they tend to be tortured attempts to make parallels between whatever the topic at PJM is with something vaguely similar at her blog. As a result, I simply skip over her posts and avoid them, the way I avoid all advertising. Ditto for Claire Spark and Apollo Speaks.

You do know that if the obama wants he could collapse the economy Monday morning.

I don’t think they are ready or it would have happened. they hope to keep prepping and would like the second term to finish that. I don’t think DHS has received it’s order for 40 cal. hollow point yet let alone distribute it.

if they don’t get the second term they most likely will play that card. not sure the forces behind obama are of the same mind. it is crunch time for Jaret and obama. they like being Queen and Queen.

HOW DO YOU START A RUN ON THE BANKS ….? ….that is what I think they will do

I agree that the correct word is invitation not infiltration. My guess is that Michelle Bachmann knows this as well but with a potentially explosive investigation like this she can’t just start off by taking direct aim at the top of the chain of command.

It seems to be you have appointed your self the last word on these matters and have served up exactly how we need to evaluate and respond to muslim terrorists or their supporters here and abroad. Thanks but no thanks! Allen West recently said that many in the Black Caucus were communists! Inflammatory perhaps but is it true?Joe McCarty said there were communists infiltrated in the post WWII governments of Roosevelt and Truman. Inflammatory but was it true?Today Michelle Bachman and her committee are responding to demands to identify national security leaks in the executive branch and see a number of highly questionable people VERY CLOSE to key decision makers in our state and defense departments. Many who are muslim and many who seem to have links via family or historical ties to the Muslim brotherhood, Hamas and god know what other openly terrorist organizations. Inflammatory you say? Or is it true?

Frankly most Americans do not really care about Hillary or Huma Abedin but Hillary is our secretary of state who has a pretty poor record of supporting the enemies of Israel, kissing Arafat’s wife and otherwise doing irreparable harm to our forign policy. Somehow you think somehow deserves a pass when she openly hires a women like Huma Abedin who has past relationships with people hostile to America and our foreign policy? You sir are full of yourself. We need to investigate all of these people AND when Obama is finally driven from the White House, only then will we see the degree of damage that he and his enablers have done.

I do not give a rat about their feelings. How is it that having known criminal scumbags, communists, and terrorist close to our Preident all of sudden “cool’. You would do us a favor and start reporting on these criminals rather than threading the political needle.

I never used the word “inflammatory.” I like inflammatory. The Abedin affair isn’t inflammatory. No flames. It’s a dud. Unless there’s material of which I’m unaware, all we know is that Abedin’s family is hard-wired into the Muslim Brotherhood. I agree that’s suspicious (but it’s not definitive), but what are we supposed to do about it when the POTUS invites the MB to the White House, AFTER said MB leader (Morsi) defended the Blind Sheikh? Now, that’s outrageous on the face of it. Just what would Morsi have to do in order to get disinvited? Defend Hitler? In the case of Morsi, WE don’t have to say he supports terrorists. HE says he supports terrorists, starting with the creep we convicted of the first World Trade Center bombing. Obama stepped right into it. We need to stay focused and win the election.

If I recall correctly, Obama insisted on the MB leadership being invited to his speech in Cairo right after he was elected. If I further remember right, this was his first foreign trip (though he missed Israel), and Mubarak did not appear for the speech because of the MB invite.

Did I remember correctly, and how did the Repubs not jump all over that? The Mainstream or RINO Republicans are implicated in so many of these policies by virtue of their passivity and acquiescence, to be sure.

The whole point of the Bachmann et al letter is that they are ASKING for an investigation; their’s is not the job of submitting the findings. And since Bachmann is a member of the intelligence committee, I would assume she is privy to information sufficiently alarming that substantiates her request.

And I think we both know that any direct attack on Obama, as you suggest, will be buried by our legacy media.

And by the way, Trent Franks is one of the most principled congressmen on capitol hill; he’s aligned himself with these other conservatives in this request for an investigation, and that speaks volumes to me.

Meanwhile, JM is an utter fool, but useful in this case as his vicious smear against Bachmann has backfired!

So I’m curious: what the hell is the deal with Madam Secretary of State? Maybe I don’t know how things work in Washington, but doesn’t she have something to do with matters like White House invites to foreign leaders? Isn’t it her job to work with the NSA and advise the President to keep his distance from the like of Morsi? Shouldn’t she have refused to go shake hands with him in Cairo? Wouldn’t a terse telegram of acknowledgment have sufficed? Shouldn’t she be resigning over this White House b.s.?

What is she, the handmaid of these disastrous, anti-American policies? I’m trying to figure out what on earth Hillary’s role and thinking are.

Inviting Morsi to the White House shows how comfortable Obama is with a media that will protect his actions and discussion of the implications. And it really gives us chills at what would happen in a second term. This was an invitation with a close election pending and the historic alliance between the Dems and Jewish Americans looking shakier than in the past.

How it shows where his true desired alliances lie. Would the US even abstain in UN measures trying to censure Israel in a 2nd term?

Mr Goldman is absolutely correct but the message to be got out to the voting public should also include the recent case of Hani Nour Eldin.

Earlier this month the Obama administration – through State spokeswoman Victoria Nuland — openly admitted that this senior representative of Gamaa Islamiya — the officially-designated terrorist group of which the ‘blind sheikh’ is the ‘spiritual leader’ – has not only been issued a visa but has been welcomed at the White House.

This is even more appalling than the invitation to Mr Mursi. Gamaa Islamiya’s terror operations have included not only the attacks in the US mentioned by Mr Goldman, but also savage attacks in Egypt against liberal Muslims and Coptic Christians.

On 29 September 1998 Amnesty International – hardly a hotbed of Islamophobia – issued a media release on the ‘gross human rights abuses’ committed in Egypt by Mr Eldin’s group. Amnesty noted that atrocities for which the group ‘claimed responsibility’ included the attempted assassination on 14 October 1994 of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz (a knife attack which left him physically unable to write for the rest of his life).

Mahfouz was only the best-known of ‘hundreds’ of ‘writers, journalists, university professors, judges and other public figures’ who, according to Amnesty, were ‘targeted’ by Mr Eldin’s organisation. In addition, ‘scores of Coptic Christians’ were ‘deliberately and arbitrarily killed’ by the group.

We won’t be making any real headway against either brand of Islamic extremism until both Washington and Moscow coordinate their efforts against what is clearly an issue in their mutual interest. Neither party can successfully go this alone. As long as the US and Russia remain divided on containing the Islamic threat, Sunni and Shia will play them off against each other to the benefit of Islam as a whole.

Iran’ threat to our interests is clear cut. While Bachmann may have fouled on this Abedin issue, at least she raised the point that there is undue influence by radical (Sunni)Islam in Washington. Anyone familiar with the workings of the Saudi Embassy or the Turkish lobby knows that already. Yes, the Saudis and Turks are radical Islamists, albeit well versed in modern methodologies of defending their interests. Their various mentors taught them well over the years. Bachmann just puts it on a personal level. I’m glad she did it.

Four states Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, are vying for predominance around our ally and beachhead Israel. None share any real mutual interest with her except trying to use Israel military power to offset their rivals. None can be flipped into a real strategic alliance with Israel as was the case with pre-Islamist Turkey, Egypt or Iran. So now McCain wants to (Sunni)radicalize Syria as well, his position is – indescribable. Only a radical Sunni agenda lobbied and advocated for at the highest levels of our government could have achieved these stunning victories for the former tent dwellers of the Arabian peninsula.

I mean it’s true Abedin has connections and that the other areas Bachmann & the 4 Congressman outlined should probably be investigated but just not NOW, right? Because we’re not just talking Obama of course, we’re talking entrenched interests and infiltration that won’t go away if Obama isn’t re-elected. But it’s just not a good time, right? But if we wait a little longer until everything comes together perfectly, THEN the smart people will know when it’s a good time to look into an area that is essential to our very survival, right?

And at this future perfect time, these brave Republicans, knowing it’s the ideal time will take the personal & political risks necessary to get these investigations going against the full force of an outraged media, an enraged Democrat party and the scorn of many of the …Republicans. And THEN it will be the hill to die on, right?

Well, of course the problem is with Obama. That becomes rather salient every year when Obama celebrates the beginning and end of the annual Ramadan Bombathon. Mrs. Bachmann is doing good work by focusing attention on the perfidy of Obama, his administration, and the Democrat Party, most evident in their collusion with the Muslim Brotherhood. Keep up the good work, Michel Bachmann.
P.S. More and more people are realizing that Senator McCain is an idiot or worse, and most people already know that Senator Graham is a buffoon. Their disapprobation should be disdained and ignored.

David
thanks for hitting on some of my favourite points here (Obama could not win without the disastrous Bush presidency, the unbearable stupidity of McCain and the other RINO;s, the Clintons, and the disaster of JINO liberals like Wiener)
Let me just say that while Ms. Bachmann may be making a tactical error, she is one of the few honest players telling it like she sees it, and not only smoking out the dishonesty of the Obama/Clinton regimes and their appaRATchiks, but the dishonest players in the Republican party. Therefore, I might follow her to the hell of her logical conclusions.
the biggest concern I have is Romney’s inability to distance himself from these RINOs (accepting endorsements from the likes of McCain, Jeb, etc.). If he cannot convince people he is not a return to the Bush I and II disasters (compromise with the left in the suicide pact, foreign interventions that get our wonderful soldiers dying for what?), buckle your seat belts for Obama Part Deux over the cliff and teotwawki.
btw can we label non-Jews like Wiener as they are – a JINO? He is as far from being a Jew (he may be an ethnic Jew, but would have been stoned in biblical times) as one can get. What religion he follows is beyond me – satanism perhaps. It is important to make the distinction, given so much hatred of Jews these days, that Jews do not accept just anyone’s self-labeling or hiding themselves behind the religion that is based upon virtues and ethics, when they have none themselves. You too, Schumer.

Bachmann’s heart is in the right place, but I have no patience for well-intended mishaps. We need to win this election. Mitt Romney has his flaws, but he sincerely believes in American exceptionalism and the need for American strategic hegemony, unlike the dog-eater who presently occupies the Oval Office. I mean “dog-eater” advisedly: he bragged about eating dog as a child in Indonesia in his memoir “Dreams of My Father” to underscore his feeling of solidarity with the colonial peoples of the world whose values differ radically from ours (eating companion animals is a hallmark of cruelty). Andy McCarthy, who knows more about these things than I do, thinks that there is something to the Abedin case. But there are plenty of things we know or suspect, or half-know or can half-prove, that don’t do us any good in a presidential election. I don’t know Weiner personally and I’m not going to comment on his religious views, if any. It’s up to God to judge what is in a man’s soul. He’s a stinker as a politician as far as I’m concerned, and that’s enough for the time being.

Just because your strategic objective is Obama doesn’t mean that you leave the tactical targets alone. Give your strategic objective more hot potatoes than he can handle and the strategic objective is easier to obtain.

When you are in all out war you don’t hold your artillery back when they have a target to hit. Fire for effect! Keep them awake, don’t let them have a moments peace to think. Freeze their OODA loop process and the self made mistakes will help you win the war.

Whatever you do, do not get tunnel vision. You will not see the flanking maneuver.

Bachmann’s heart is in the right place, but I have no patience for well-intended mishaps.

Keep in mind here that the stage on which her mishap was acted out is a minefield populated by groups that either believe in the elusive Moderate Moslem, who Dubya proclaimed are 99% of the Ummah, which’d make one think they wouldn’t be so hard to find. There are those who know the score about Islam but are anyway still hell-bent on wishing the problem away, Neville Chamberlain-style: news entertainers, generals, professors, bureaucrats, judges, priests, rabbis et al.

True, she shoulda knowed about stage was mined, and it’s always a mistake to pull a gun and start talking about it instead of pulling the trigger, which she did. But this is a good politician, itself a rare thing, not a Spengler or Bostom or Spencer.

Nobody in the conservative party made a sound when House of Bush completed billion dollar businesses with House of Saud, which funds Muslim brotherhood, Hamas, promotes Sharia law and overthrow of western society. If its such a bad idea for president Obama to talk with Egypt’s President, how bad is it for US Presidents to have business transactions and joint ventures with House of Saud. Take the wool off your eyes at some point.

The GOP pushed invading Iraq and “spreading democracy across the middle east”…you got what you asked for, democracy is an ugly bloody business and nobody can predict where it will lead. The rise of Iran, mess in Egypt and Syria today is a direct result of destabilizing middle east by invading Iraq, this was no brainer except to geopolitical blind.

Today’s brilliant idea is Attacking Iran, playing directly into Saudi Hands…we already played into Iranian hands, we will now double down disastrous foreign policy by attacking Iran ?..utter thoughtlessness.

There needs to be at least minimal thought and deliberation of our foreign policy, stumbling around like drunken sailors has cost thousands of lives, hundreds of thousands of wounded and maimed, and several trillion dollars.

Chicago is corrupt..is that news? The CBOT is center of money laundering for both political parties, drug cartels, Banks, and has been for decades. This will never change, so get used to it. The GOP will never shut it down, they need it as much as DNC does.

If you really want to change the world start in your own backyard..when you clean your own house people will take you seriously. Until then its just world class hypocrisy.

Inviting the blind sheikh’s backer to the White House: there’s no ambiguity there.

With Islamists and (also with Putin), Barack Obama displays a consistent deference. I think Obama envies their absolutism, their power w/o messy process, and yearns for same.

Those guys know it, and exploit it.

Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) on Sunday congratulated Mohammed Morsi on his election as the new president of Egypt.

Fake deference from two Old Schoolers severely out of touch.

Michelle Bachmann may have stepped into it with Huma Abedin, but I share her concerns when it comes to Keith Ellison, democrat representative from Minnesota. I think Ellison is really into that “sabotaging the miserable house of the unbeliever from within” garbage.

David P. Goldman – Why not offer yourself as a tactician and a formulator of strategic step-down plans for Backmann? There is absolutely NO question that there is betrayal in the WH; none! I find it hilarious that a woman (Michelle Backmann) is the front and center warrior calling out Islam in the WH … that, – as we know – makes Islam livid, and sends its followers (like Ellison) into a tailspin. The tail of the serpent has been grasped and there it is dangling in mid-air; and this particular serpent cannot strike back along its own length because it doesn’t have the power … it’s a phony. Therein lies its weakness.
Let’s keep this momentum going and make it front and center this summer. Go Bachmann go!!!!

It would be interesting to know what sort of associations (if any) with MB might disqualify one for a security clearance and whether those standards have been changed recently.

As a side note, it’s a challenge to have a work force in our diplomatic and intelligence services which is both well traveled and cosmopolitan but also free of any sort of association with suspicious states or groups. For example, a candidate for a position at DoS might be the US born child of recent Chinese emigrants and speak fluent and colloquial Mandarin, but if they have close family in or travel to China then they might be considered a questionable prospect from a security PoV.

The Saudis hate the Muslim Brotherhood more than they hate the Iranians; the MB wants to overthrow the monarchy and replace it with a totalitarian vanguard-party model. Both are nasty, but the MB represents a threat to the US and the Saudi monarchy doesn’t (except to the extent that they pay bakshish to terorrists, but that is easy to discourage; there are only a few thousand members of the royal family and we know where all of them live). No-one I know proposes to invade Iran. Bomb them, yes. That’s cheap and easy and effective, and I’m for it. It bespeaks a paranoid mindset to assume that EVERY US military action against a prospective enemy involves another major land war.

Re: KSA, exactly. They have several important interests aligned w/those of the US. That’s why writers/commenters who see things only through the lens of “Jihad” it wrong (in a mirror image of those who see things only through the RoP lens).

Robert Gates … the guy whose mourning for U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq (many by Iran)was prominently featured in the media but who obstructed plans to strike Iran? … the guy who facilitated and put a “Good Housekeeping Seal” on BHO’s appeasement policies?

Well “I’ll tell yah” jgets, no need to rely on my qualifications. Just review the lack of action on Iran during Gates’ (I guess it’s “Bob” to you?) tenure at DoD.

You might also review the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report in 2007/2008 calling for “engagement” vs. confrontation with Iran. Gates had a prominent role in ISG. ISG was a big part of the “bi-partisan” media/academia/establishment pressure to prevent action against Iran.

If you can demonstrate that Gates had a record in the period 2004to 2010 of genuinely advocating policies which would have given us something different than our current position of weakness and danger w/respect to Iran I’d be delighted to see it.

I should add that I think Gates is an honorable and sincere public servant. Unfortunately, he is a prisoner of an establishment concept (which he helped to build) that it is necessary and possible to deal with Iran via diplomatic engagement and other steps short of decisive action. It’s not uncommon for foreign policy/security establishments to become prisoners of their own “concept (see Israel prior to the 1973 War – http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/int/2002/00000017/00000002/art00004)”.

Winston Churchill recognized that Neville Chamberlain was a gentleman, albeit a gentleman w/a flawed concept of the actual threat of Nazi Germany.

MarcH, People like Gates have worked long and hard, please don’t exploit the Homeland. We have enough problems as it is juggling our ideals and your internecine immigrant related feuds. I’m interested in the American interest, not our transient vassals interest. There will be no more “tail wagging the dog” if I can help it, from any one of you special interests. Put the Nation first. And if you don’t like it, do us a favor, emigrate. Canada sounds acceptable. Even the Russians might be in the market for an opportunistic increase of your ilk. Although (concerning Canada), I’d like to hear more on Cybergeezer’s assertion about Spengler’s Canadian birthplace.

How much socialism do these Enemies of Democracy have to profess, before they are called the Communists they really are?
What blatant actions are necessary to convey these Democrats are embracing the Soviet manifesto?

Regarding your comment on the ‘export of democracy’, and it’s uselessness in the face of radical islam:

Bush’s doctrine of exporting democracy was based on the book ‘The Case for Democracy’ by former soviet prisoner Natan Sharansky. A good read, btw.

In the book, Sharansky specifically decries the undue emphasis on elections rather than basic human rights.

He does not equate the export of democracy with military action, but rather with the ability of democratic gov’ts like ours to link our assistance and recognition of other governments with the way they treat their citizens. He saw this as much as a security issue for us as a moral issue (terrorism and aggression towards other nations are often used by tyrannical governments for various reasons which he spells out).

Bush a) equated the export of democracy with regime change and military action b) put too much emphasis on elections and c) in any case, backed down from promoting democracy in his second term, likely under the influence of ‘realists’ such as Rice. Nonetheless, he also promoted policies of ‘linkage’ that had a beneficial influence in Arab countries, until he backed down from his overall agenda.

So, criticizing Bush is totally fair. But equating Bush’s policies (the good and the bad, and the ones that he prematurely abandoned) with democracy promotion as a whole is an unfortunate generalization.

Oh, are you stating your dislike of some aspects of Sharansky or are you taking issue with the US using its leverage to push for improved human rights in the countries with whom it has influence?

I don’t care about the totality of the man’s views (I don’t even know all of the man’s views) – but I do care about the US intelligently promoting democracy/human rights (not elections alone) in the spheres where it has influence.

P.S., I was doing field-research on moderation vs. extremism in several ME countries at the end of Bush’s second term. I heard firsthand from people (scholars, activists, politicians) in those countries (Egypt, Jordan, etc) how when Bush put pressure on their gov’ts to liberalize, it had an effect, and when he backed down, it had the opposite effect. They decried the change in policy that allowed their governments to backslide.

So, democracy promotion does not necessarily involve military action and regime change. As one Egyptian researcher (Gamal Abdel Gawad from Al-Ahram) told me in an interview: “The best way to create democratic change in Egypt is for the US to help reform the regime out of existence”

(He then went on to name three areas in particular – educational reform; reform of the judiciary and reform of the police. In all of these cases he was referring to the US assisting – with some linkage to aid and diplomatic pressure – for these segments of society to become more effective, transparent and responsive to the basic rights of the population.)

Unfortunately, as we know, that is not what eventually took place – though Bush initially did make some inroads in this regard.

And it is a misguided isolationism to think that we can turn our backs as a country like Egypt becomes repressively Islamist (despite our ability to excercise leverage and linkage), (ex: recently broadcasting the beheading of a muslim convert to christianity on national tv), and think that this will not affect our country’s security in the long run. To deal with the MB only when they reach our shores (or not deal, as the article points out) is shortsighted at best, dangerous at worst.

Think about where our hands-off policy towards the spread of extremism in Saudi Arabia (and by them around the globe) got us. Nobody is recommending misguided military action, but the days of old-school isolationism will not work – we are no longer able to remain isolated from our enemies by any stretch of the imagination.

Let’s see…McCain and Co. have backed the Arab Spring since day one and Bachmann is privy to intelligence we don’t have. I know which one I prefer to see speaking out. And we don’t know everything. Maybe there is reason for this to come out now and no time to postpone it for political gain. I think McCain may certainly have reason to try to get them to back off Huma, and it’s not just out of respect.

Haven’t read this piece yet – I am on Patrick Poole’s fine piece. I am responding to the heading, “The Problem is Obama, NOT Huma Abedin.” Of course the lion’s share of the problem is Obama but Huma Abedin is not (potentially) an insignificant problem. She is not to be minimized simply because she is a attractive woman Mr. Goldman. Goldman: “The fact is no-one cares about Abedin.” Please Mr. Goldman, speak for yourself.

Fine. Nobody but a few mavens cares about Abedin. You are not going to create a wave of public outrage about a woman born in Michigan, married to a Jew, whose mother has nasty connections in Saudi Arabia. Inviting a supporter of a big-league terrorist to the White House is another matter.

Your point about mavens is well-taken. I do not consider myself a maven. I like to read about Islam, especially post 9/11. I understand Huma Abedin — an attractive woman who comes devout Muslim family, strangely enough married a Jew (I am Jewish by the way); see Walid Shoebat’s take on that — engenders much sympathy even from men like Senator John McCain, Speaker John Boehner, Senator Marco Rubio; men who should know better.

The point is, either these men did not read the Congresswoman’s responsive letter to former NOI / Farrakhan activist, Rep. Keith Ellison, or they are dishonest. Salon.com quotes Rubio complaining about Bachmann: “…in fact, I’m very very careful and cautious about ever making accusations like that about anyone.”

What accusations? The following is the pertinent language contained in Bachmann’s letter:

2) (Quoting Keith Ellison): “The mother, brother and deceased father of Huma Abedin, Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, and that she, too, ***by extension***, may be working on the organization’s behalf.”

(Bachmann responds:) “Not once in the letter to the Inspector General of the Department of State, as you summarize was it stated that “by extension, (Ms. Abedin), may be working on the organization’s behalf.” In fact, what we wrote was that:

“…the Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, has three family members – her late father, her mother and her brother – connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/ or organizations. Her position provides her with routine access to the Secretary and to policy-making.

“That her family members are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood has been reported and referenced widely in the Arab-language media, including Al-Hayat, the Arab Times and Al-Jazerra….”

Hillary and Bill Clinton, when they occupied the White House, invited not a supporter of terrorism, but Mr. Terrorist himself, Yasser Arafat, to sleep over in the Lincoln Bedroom almost every other weekend.

Hillary was shamed by her hubby the cheater, and Huma by her hubby the tweeter. The two make a good couple.

Who performed the marriage of Huma Abedin, a Muslim, and Anthony Weiner, a Jew? Clinton Irrumator himself.

Did the Muslim Brotherhood or Sisterhood complain about such a marriage of their daughter and sister to a Jew?

Or that Huma works as the Chief Deputy Assistant of Hillary Clinton, who is the Secretary of State of the Big Satan?

So, it’s not only Obama, but the whole damn lot of them, who are the problem. And now so are you, Mr. Goldman.

I’m skeptical about democracy in a country that is 45% illiterate and where a third of marriages are between cousins (the hallmark of a clan-based society), and where the dominant religion is in many ways antithetical to democracy.

Neither Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman nor Jonathan Pollard will be released no matter how creative respective supporters get in weaving a tapestry of brinkmanship. Don’t get rattled. It ain’t gonna happen.

Tim Russert joked that McCain and Clinton (and implicitly Lieberman) might form a fusion ticket? Bush was a disaster? Bolton is the smartest guy in Washington? In the debates, the GOP nominee for VP may not be able reconcile the discrepancies. Composure, not tethering nerves, will win this race and Clinton has too much clout to be rattled by innuendo.

Yeah, when you think about that Netanyahu had to sneak in through the back door and Morsi is coming in through the front door then you start to laugh. Just an observation, not an instigation.

Let’s hope that 4 years from now Romney isn’t getting the same treatment from the “patriot” voters that McCain is getting right now. No composure.

Minnesota sucks no matter what your political affiliation! Seriously. Its residents consider a trip to Wisconsin to be travel abroad and the halting of spear fishing the highest priority. Nobody in that state should be allowed to vote. Lakes. Gophers. Fargo.

“McCain continues to push for U.S. intervention in Syria, despite massive public opposition to an American role. Intervening in Syria is the dumbest thing America could so.”

The only “intervention” I’d support is one to neutralize Syria’s most dangerous weapons, especially its stock of chemical weapons. As to the rest, well, it’s Alien vs. Predator, with one US-hating and Jew-hating camp or another likely to take over. It’s too bad when innocents are caught in the crossfire, but I’d oppose any refugees from Syria being allowed into Israel (as some like Amnesty are demanding), especially as they’ve got three other borders available to them (Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq).

Look, we need to throw everyone out including McLame, Grahmnesty and the other RINOS with the progs. All this infighting is useless. Our enemy is the progs/commies/marxists whatever you want to call them.

So MB is atacking Dear Leader from one angle. Where are our other “conservatives” GOPers at and why aren’t they attacking Zero from other angles? Afraid, yep. Don’t care,yep. Believe in what the progs preach, yep. Have their money and status so the hell with us, yep. Notice the silence by “our” guys on Ross comment against the TEA Party.

And unless you are prepared to fight for America, all this talk is moot, useless and nothing more than everyone one trying to one-up the other. It will be us that saves America not our pols.

Mr. Goldman,
As I see it the problem is deeper: since the beginning of 20th century (may be even earlier) the general societal tendency is toward socialism through all administrations, both R and D. Sometimes it is called “taming” rugged individualism, sometimes progressing, sometimes “compassionate conservatism” (as if real conservatism is something to be ashamed about), sometimes “social justice” (whatever that means), sometimes “give their fair share” (of course they never define what “fair share” means). Of course there is no linear progress (for the lack of a better word because word “progress” is already and may be irredeemably perverted). Sometimes when the proponents of this march toward socialism run ahead of them self, there is backlash (Reagan?). But it is always, ALWAYS resumes. That’s why I suspect that the history will run its course through an upheaval, revolutions and general misery before societal sanity will prevail. Unfortunately this will not happen before I will be gone, so my children and grandchildren will most likely live in a very interesting times. That’s why I perceive Humas, Carters, Clintons, Hillaries, Morsies, Obamas, McCains, etc. as just busybodies paving the road to hell. I would like to stop them, but since ~50% of the population is basically ignorant (thanks to a wonderful school system) and dependent on the gov. hangouts I doubt it is possible. Even Romney will win, than what? Economy will improve, gov. will get more money without additional taxes(hopefully), but social (gimme) attitude will not change and the number of this attitude adherents will only increase. Will he stop paying welfare based on the number of children? NO. Will he shrink (or even be able to do so if he wants to) the Fed. Gov. reach outside of its constitutionally prescribed activities? NO.
So if we assume that Romney is as constitutionalist as we want, the one after him will be less so, etc.
Entropy is a very powerful force.

Mr. Goldman, I am going to sign off for myself today with a remark based upon reading the comments. In your answer to S. Klein you repeat in just a few words the thesis of your article. I addressed my opening shot to you confessing my accord with your criticism of “much ado about” Abedin as an unnecessary distraction from the campaign against Obama. (I personally have a strong admiration for Mrs. Bachmann as a familial role model, but even such an admired person can make tactical errors. And I do think she is on to something!) I do remain with my longterm worries about some sort of inflitration into the State Dept as happened with FDR. In context of this worry I reflect: If only FDR had been defeated on his third attempt to become president, the infiltration would not have ensued. Similarly, a similar defeat of Obama for his second term could well cut off any further Adelin influence (or by any other pro-Brotherhood-ites). And this is precisely your point, one you make several times, perhaps to the point that your fingers became tired typing! And just such an apparently necessitated repetition gives me pause to reflect with concern.

Reading the comments, some inflamed with emotion, I note that your admonition, while verbally acknowledged, effectively gives way to a repeated desire to persue the matter and in public and right now. As long as discussions remain on the pages of PJM, FrontPage, National Review, CNS, etc., I see no campaign harm other than that emotional energy gets, perhaps, drained off. If, however, the excitement leads to pushing for a public confrontation with the Obama administration or with a public attack upon McCain, the MSM will pick that up and, poof, there goes Obama and his invitation of a mass murderer or, for that matter, his record in general. Hillary and Adelin become the counter canditate instead of Obama. Beyond that, the sad fact is that the GOP needs a united front and that includes McCain & Co. I do not want him to wander irritated about grumbling about Romney the way liberal Republicans did about Goldwater. That was and is a recipe for defeat. Result: Obama remains and Hillary goes on being advised by a source of doubtful value for the confrontation with aggressive Brotherhood Islam. I have no more than an impression, but such a feeling induces me to believe that your repeated thesis, simple to understand, is losing ground. Just an impression and nothing more. Thanks again for the article.

The support the Obama Administration and the propaganda outlets gave to the arab spring produced the illusion of an electoral process, where the extremist Muslim Brotherhood little by little is ascending to power. If I’m not mistaken is not that, the same Brotherhood who said Israel have no right to exist?.. Well the UN and the rest of the world should not be surprise when Israel, surrouded by such “friends” will yell Enough is Enough.

Intervening in Syria is the dumbest thing America could so. As I argued in this space
on June 13, we should neutralize Iran and let the Syrian business play out as it might.
We don’t want the pro-Iranian Alawite regime to keep control, and we don’t want an
opposition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood to take power. The solution that best
corresponds to American interests is “none of the above,” and we should do our best to
arrange that.

Which is exactly what I have thought ever since Syria went into melt-down. And this is a good short-term approach to the situation.

However, in the longer-term (3 to 5 years from now) this approach won’t work. Some side will win the conflict. As Mr. Goldman writes, both of the sides as they presently exist are inimical to the traditions of freedom and respect for human rights. What is the long-term strategy for preventing Syria from becoming another Muslim Brotherhood state or remaining in the bloody hold of an inhuman tyrant? There needs to be some kind of long-term strategy for the U.S. in Syria, doesn’t there?

Mr. Goldman – in respectful disagreement to your article, we are fully capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. Rep. Bachmann’s actions did absolutely nothing to detract from this president’s overt sympathy for muslim extremists. Nothing. As a matter of fact, she actually performed a great service by bringing this matter to the attention of the American people in a public and direct fashion. I sincerely wish more American ‘politicians’ would find the courage to follow Rep. Bachmann’s lead.

Americans are literally sick of these spineless, self-serving, pusillanimous representatives and are yearning for a strong, steadfast and patriotic leader. Anybody could beat this clown of a president in this election, if only they had the courage to call him exactly what he is. The proof is everywhere.

Mr. Goldman wrote: “Much as I like the man personally, George W. Bush was a disaster for his country and his party, squandering the enormous mandate he received after 9/11 to the point that a first-term senator from Illinois could walk into the White House….”

Well here is point on which we can agree, only I cannot say I “like” George W. Bush personally any more than I’d say I like Obama personally, albeit Obama is much, much worse.

As a forty (plus) year Republican I reluctantly voted for Bush in 2000 — I did not like his father, George H. W. Bush, but I gave his self-professed born-again Christian son a chance. I did not repeat the mistake in 2004. What Bush was and is became evident to everyone but the most idolatrous or blind only days after the 9/11 Muslim-terror attacks in New York and Washington.

I have been making this case everywhere I can; namely George W. Bush and his consistently uncritical toadies and supporters (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Elliot Abrams, Republican leaders, rank and file Republicans, etc.) are largely responsible for the rise of Barack Hussein Obama, America’s worst nightmare yet. Bush was and is an unmitigated disaster; he was a disaster on Israel(the land of Israel) and Islam to name only a couple fundamental or critical issues.

In the past Mrs. Bachman frequently “spouted off” without checking her facts so I suspect anything she says. I think various Muslims have infiltrated our government and have wondered why they are treated so carefully. Gaffney has written about Muslim infiltration. It did not receive much publicity but he named names.{many influential Republicans} I am very suspicious about all the delays in trying cases in which Muslims have killed numbers of people. Some Communist said that American would be conquored from within and I think that is true…..It’s happening now.

You begin with a disclaimer that you doubt Mrs. Bachmann’s credibility and then you go on to agree with what she is doing.
You wrote “In the past Mrs. Bachman frequently “spouted off” without checking her facts”. Could you support that with examples?

One of her most memorable gaffes was claiming that her birthplace, Waterloo, Iowa was also the birthplace of John Wayne….actually it was the birthplace of John Wayne Gacy….apparently, she didn’t read the end of the sentence. Another was claiming that John Quincy Adams was one of our forefathers and was at the signing of the Declaration of Independence…He was eight years old at the time. There are other examples.
Mrs. Bachmann is an orator but she is not always right. Before making an assertion about Huma Abedin, she should double check her facts BECAUSE she has goofed in the past. Either she has a lousy staff or she is a poor leader who doesn’t insist that the staff is correct.
She is attractive but I, for one, was relieved when she dropped out of the primary. Now, I suppose she is preparing for the next one.

John Wayne Gacy was born in Chicago not Waterloo, he lived in Waterloo for a few years. John Wayne the actor was born in Iowa. So Michele Bachmann flubbed some trivia. And the John Quincy Adams as a founding father is also trivial.
Many women don’t like other women and so they backbite, and that’s how I view your disparaging opening sentence. Mrs. Bachmann is an honorable and courageous public servant. Senator McCain, we honor for his gig as a POW, but he is dishonest and Senator Graham is a buffoon.

I believe Congresswoman Bachmann and her four Congressional colleagues did their homework on this one. I’ve not seen any disputation – on the part of her political enemies; John McCain, John Boehner, Marco Rubio, etc. – of her / their facts contained in the letters; not yet.

There are plenty of facts — about Huma’s family. My friend Andrew Bostom has a pretty damning summary here:http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2012/07/22/saleha-abedin-and-the-muslim-sisterhood/
And I applaud Andy for hammering at the issue. But it’s one thing for an investor like Andy to hammer at it, and for an elected official to make an issue of it. No-one has anything solid against Huma Abedin personally. As far as the public is concerned, she’s a US citizen (born in Michigan) who’s not responsible for her family’s unsavory connections. That’s why Bachmann’s move backfired. Until someone has solid facts about Abedin herself, it’s an investigative story, not a lever for public policy.

Islam isn’t going to conquer America from within. There are two million Muslims, maybe, in the U.S., by Daniel Pipes’ count. The main victims of Sharia are Muslim women who get beaten and sometimes killed, but no-one is going to impose Sharia on the United states. The Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons to wipe us off the face of the earth. However, Muslim terrorists might take out an American city and kill a few million people. I don’t mean to minimize the danger. However, we are the main danger to ourselves: our own laziness, dependency, corruption.

YES!!! It is precisely this urge to appease on the part of the Obama Administrationa and the embarassing fact that Anwar Al-Awlaki (the same U.S. citizen who was later communicating with the Ft. Hood shooter) was invited to the Pentagon shortly after 9/11 that sparks so many conspiracy theories. If Uncle Sam wasn’t trying so hard to keep ‘our Islamists’ on the payroll maybe certain talk radio hosts wouldn’t make so much hay out of it. Don’t like the conspiracy theorists? Then focus on the stupid State Dept. policy which thinks it can prevent sudden jihad syndrome and ‘blue on green’ killings in Afghanistan. It cannot.

Also, go to YouTube and watch: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and its Role in Enforcing Islamic Law

Just how far do we need to go allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate American universities and colleges, our media, our government from the local, county, state and national levels up?

If you would like to track the movement of the Muslim Brotherhood since they first entered the United States in 1962, formed their first group, Muslim Students Association (MSA) on the campus of the University of Illinois, Champaign, IL there is a PowerPoint that will help.

This PowerPoint needs to be reviewed by our military, House, Senate and administration to see if they can prove it is inaccurate and then explain why our enemy can roam freely in our nation for 50-years and neither party says a thing about it.

The RINO Republican leadership in the House must hold hearings on the Muslim Brotherhood or they will be just as bad as the Democrats.

Hillary and Bill Clinton, when they occupied the White House, invited not a supporter of terrorism, but Mr. Terrorist himself, Yasser Arafat, to sleep over in the Lincoln Bedroom almost every other weekend.

Hillary was shamed by her hubby the cheater, and Huma by her hubby the tweeter. The two make a good couple.

Who performed the marriage of Huma Abedin, a Muslim, and Anthony Weiner, a Jew? Clinton Irrumator himself.

Did the Muslim Brotherhood, as one would expect, ever object to the intermarriage of one of their own to a Jew?

Or scold Huma for being the Chief Deputy Assistant to Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State of the U.S., the Big Satan?

And wasn’t it President Obama who appointed Hillary Clinton, Huma’s boss, to that important, critical high office?

“The delusion that democracy can be exported help cost the Republicans the 2008 election. McCain continues to push for U.S. intervention in Syria, despite massive public opposition to an American role. Intervening in Syria is the dumbest thing America could so. As I argued in this space on June 13, we should neutralize Iran and let the Syrian business play out as it might.”

I don’t know why there are so many members of Congress who have this fetish for trying to force democracy on countries that have absolutely no desire for it. This is especially true in Muslim nations. Does anybody, ANYBODY, out there think that Afghanistan will be a model of democratic reform once we run away from there? After 12 years of being in that worthless country, is Afghanistan any closer today to being a firm, sustainable, democracy than it was back in 2001? No, it is not, and we all know it. As soon as we drag our sorry tails out of Afghanistan it will be taken over by the Taliban or some other bunch of religious fanatics. Karzai may even hold on for a year or two, but he WILL fall, just like the Soviet puppet regime fell a few years after the Soviets ran away from Afghanistan.

Face it, there just are some countries out there that, no matter how hard you try, will never embrace democracy. They never have and they never will. It’s just not in their DNA. They’ve had no history of democracy and no major democratic movements in their countries, so why do we (or even the UN for that matter) think we can force it on them?

Muslim nations see all westerners as outsiders and infidels. No matter what we do, they will never trust us, let alone do what we say. Our best bet is to leave them alone, but also leave them with a very clear message. If they ever, EVER, decide to attack us like they did on 9/11, we will come back to their pitiful little countries and destroy all of them. But we have to MEAN IT. If we do that, they will leave us alone, or at the very least think twice before attacking us. We can intimidate them, but we will never be able to force our beliefs on them. Co-existance is the best we can hope for in the Middle East, and we need to be satisfied with that. But they will never embrace our form of government, just like we would never think of embracing theirs. And thank God for that.

It is a result of a progressive/communist belief that we can change the hearts and minds of people who we want to change. It is what progressives are trying to do in our schools. It is based on a belief that nurture/education can overcome our genetic heritage. It is the communist/Nazi belief that we can become superpeople with the proper education. Thomas Sowell correctly called it the ‘unconstrained vision’.

David Goldman, following Caroline Glick, is right: Obama’s staggering blindness and stupidity about the MB should be the far bigger and more important issue with Republicans and Conservatives than Huma Abedin’s possible treachery-which I suspect is real.

In principle Moslem terrorism against infidels is not a crime or sin in Islam. And that is why the new MB president of Egypt pledged in his inaugural to work for the release of Sheikh Abdul Rahman. True to his MB ideology Morsi believes that Rahman is a righteous believer (a Moslem saint) innocent of wrongdoing and should be freed. Morsi is an enemy of the US; that is the bottom line and should be a burning issue.

the whole article could be a lot shorter by saying “Bachman did her job correctly and it pissed me off.”
If I had a friend like Abedin I would not have passed my PRP checks for nuke stuff….yet MB asking a question about how the process works causes all the pundits to bang away on the keyboards.

Bachmann didn’t annoy me. I’m on her side. But the result is an unseemly fight in which the Republican leadership ganged up on the right — not what we need. If Bachmann et. al. had attacked Obama, all would have been well.

Oh, so now your on her side. Didn’t get that as an initial impression. Look out there Spengler, you might get dirt under you fingernails if you keep this up. No bother, I think the Germans have a fine product for getting rid of that.

contrary to popular belief, or political strategy, there is never a wrong time to do what is right.
what if she had ignored it during this election cycle?
the backfire from that could be just as bad.
as a whole we need to support people who do their jobs w/o caring about the popularity.

jgets @ #23 – Way to speak truth to power!!! Thanks for protecting the Articles of Confederation from foreign special interests such as Spengler (I’m just a flunky), even at the risk that ZOG will scramble the black helicopters and FBI-HRT.

MarcH, It ain’t up to me to make policy. If you aren’t a flunky stop posting like one. My opinion is as valid as yours in the comments section of PJM. Restrain yourself, rebut, and leave the conspiracy crap aside.

I am sorry if somehow I offended you, although I cannot see why you consider Russia an unattractive destination. This was not always the case.

We have plenty of time to deal with the Iranians MarcH. Rest assured, when American interests are threatened by the Iranians we will act accordingly. And please show some respect for our dead. It was our Nation’s choice, for better or worse, to send troops to Iraq. Maybe you should blame unnecessary casualties on the Turks, for not allowing a second front through the north.

“Maybe you should blame unnecessary casualties on the Turks, for not allowing a second front through the north”.

It’s hard to believe that someone w/access to the internet could be so ill-informed about basic facts about the OIF campaign. Your internet news reading must focus on Kos, Daily Show and Stormfront. In fact, the vast majority of US and allied casualties occurred after 2004 (http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/IRAQ-CASUALTY-COUNT.html). By 2004 the MNF-I was already well established in Iraq so the Turkish denial of an invasion route was not a factor in those casualties. On the other hand, there is extensive open source information discussing the important role of Syria and Iran and cross border sanctuaries to support various insurgent groups in Iraq in their efforts to kill US and allied soldiers as well as Iraqis. For a start, you might look up the findings section in the text of the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment.

This is the entity that John McCain and his good friend Mrs. Clinton are cozying up to:

“The founding document of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (now the Organization of Islamic Cooperation) is its Charter [pdf], which states in Article 15:

The Independent Permanent Commission on Human Rights shall promote the civil, political, social and economic rights enshrined in the organisation’s covenants and declarations and in universally agreed human rights instruments, in conformity with Islamic values. [emphasis added]

So what “universally agreed human rights instruments” are referenced here? One might assume that the OIC is referring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but one would be wrong.

The OIC considers the UDHR inadequate and un-Islamic. To codify the human rights of Muslims, the OIC created the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, commonly known as the “Cairo Declaration”. It is a formal legal instrument put together by the OIC on behalf of OIC member states in 1990, and was formally served to the United Nations in 1993.

Article 22 of the Cairo Declaration states:

(a) Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah.
1. Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Shari’ah.
(c) Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical Values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith.
(d) It is not permitted to excite nationalistic or doctrinal hatred or to do anything that may be an incitement to any form or racial discrimination. [emphasis added]

And this:
The OIC is now more than halfway through a ten-year program designed to eliminate “Islamophobia” in the infidel world. To that end it established the Islamophobia Observatory, and every year the Observatory issues a report with its findings and recommendations. The “Fourth OIC Observatory Report on Islamophobia” [pdf], covering the period from May 2010 to April 2011, included the following ominous passages:

Approaches like applying the ‘test of consequences’ were useful and would have to be explored/refined further in an objective fashion towards evolving a consensus with regard to effectively addressing the matter; and
As regards the issue of freedom of opinion and expression, the OIC could with the views of Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and expression with regard to making “very few exceptions” but the contours of such exceptions would have to be identified. OIC believed that unfortunate and outrageous episodes like the caricatures and the burning of holy Quran merited the grant of such exceptions; [emphasis added]

This is the heart of the matter.

“The Cairo Declaration insists that there must be exceptions to the right of free speech — hopefully “very few” — when defamation of Islam or the prophet is the issue. Most European countries, under the benevolent guidance of the EU, have already fallen into line on this requirement, as evidenced by the state prosecutions of Geert Wilders, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Lars Hedegaard, Jussi Halla-aho, Michael Mannheimer, and numerous others.

The USA remains a stubborn holdout, thanks to an annoying little piece of paper known as the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. One of the primary goals of the OIC is to find a workaround for this problem, and the “test of consequences” may be the solution it has been looking for.”

Did you read that? “One of the PRIMARY goals of the OIC is to find a wordaround for this problem, and the “test of consequences” may be the solution it has been looking for.”

“The idea is that the intent of the speaker and the meaning of what he says would no longer be the only issue. The judicial system would also be required to take the likely “consequences” of his speech into account when determining whether he is engaging in a form of protected expression. If he writes an article, performs a song, or draws a picture that is likely to anger a group of people and make them riot, then that is a consequence of his actions, and would justify restrictions on those particular instances of expression.

If the United States could be persuaded to adopt this test — supplementing the more familiar standard imposing a “test of content”, which covers incitement and so on — then the OIC could implement its plan and eliminate “Islamophobia” in America without ever having to amend the Constitution or change any existing laws.

If the “test of consequences” can be slipped into American judicial precedent, the OIC will be well on the way to realizing its most important goals. And the blueprint for the implementation of the OIC’s program can be discerned from Mrs. Clinton’s carefully-chosen words. The United States will undertake “implementation efforts” providing “a comprehensive framework” to address the problem of “incendiary actions” (i.e. speech that defames Islam) that generate “wide ripples of intolerance”. Those “ripples” are the consequences for which the “incendiary actions” of the “Islamophobes” will be tested.

Our Secretary of State is shrewd enough to realize that implementation of the OIC’s standards cannot be accomplished just yet. First there must be “peer pressure and shaming” — that is, people who criticize Islam must be put beyond the pale”.

I’m on Bachmann’s side. I want her to win. She got sucker punched this time around. I applaud Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney, Andrew Bostom, Andy McCarthy and all the other investigators who have brought this material out. But it’s one thing to publish the material and another for a Congresswoman to demand an investigation without a smoking gun in hand.

“Morsi supports the deadliest terrorist in an American jail. Obama invites him to the White House.”

Anyone capable of understanding the significance of this has long since decided to vote against Obama. His entire appeal is based on looks, not resume, performance, moral compass or policy. Now if he were to gain weight and lose his hair then you would see a significant decline in support.

There’s a little pretty-boy bust of the ancient Roman emperor Caligula, though, with the slightest curl to the lip that shows him up as the monster that he was back then. Look closely and you can detect similar signs in Obama today.

Those that wonder just how could Barry HUSSEIN Soetero Kardashian favour Islam should realise that the USURPER was born to a Kenyan British Citizen Muslim, alcoholic, polygamous, womanizing, Undesirable mooching alien, absentee Father and an underage mother and adopted by an Indonesian Muslim STEPFATHER. ALL members of BOTH his Paternal Families are Muslims even his Kenyan Grandmother who his LYING Election Committee told us was a Christian has not long returned (AFTER his election of course) from the completing the Haj at Mecca.

He was brought up and schooled as a registered MUSLIM in BOTH the State and even the Catholic run MULTI FAITH school he attended in Jakarta.

When Barry was in Indonesia you had to be an Indonesian CITIZEN to go to State School, so maybe THATS why the Passport , College and Student loan records are HIDDEN.
His Jakarta school contemporaries , one of whom is the current head of Garuda Airlines the Indonesian national airline,remember him as a devout Mosque going MUSLIM.

He took KORANIC STUDIES a Muslim ONLY subject at school a fact he himself ADMITS in his book DREAMS. He is on record as saying ‘If the Political will goes against them I WILL STAND WITH THE MUSLIMS” and also “the Muslim call to prayer is one of the MOST beautiful sounds on earth” .

He can also recite the Shahada in perfectly accented Koranic Arabic , must be a result of his MENGAGI studies he also took(Mengagi is the study of the pronounciation of Koranic Arabic and quite is different from modern Arabic) , a subject only DEVOUT Muslims take. According to Muslims anyone who says the Shahada, which calls Allah the PARAMOUNT God (why Paramount are there other LESSER Gods????) and claims Mohammad as his messenger , IS A MUSLIM.

So who is Barry HUSSEIN Soetero Kardashian America’s first Gay, Celebrity USURPER President the man who tells us he has ‘ALWAYS been a Christian” well for a start he is a BLATANT BAREFACED LIAR .

It also raises the questions “Can a member of a RACIST anti White, Anti Semitic, Anti American “Black Liberation Theology” Church which is closer to Islam than it is to Christianity be truly considered Christian? ” “Why if he indeed is no longer Muslim , as he most definitely was, have Muslims not issued a FATWA against him calling for his death as an APOSTATE.

In Islam it is forbidden to harm the ‘innocent’ which they spout often and which Islamophile moonbats love to quote in Islam’s defense. But what they fail to explain is that in Islam ONLY practicing MUSLIMS can be considered INNOCENT all others are GUILTY of NOT bowing down to their SATANIC God allah.

Anyone who draws parallels between Islam and Christianity is either insane or an Islamic propagandist and the say the Bible ,which is largely historical, DESCRIPTIVE and written by MEN, can be compared with the PRESCRIPTIVE Koran, which Muslims claim as the ‘ACTUAL and UNALTERABLE’ words of their God as dictated to Mohammad and which is a turgid , repetitive, full of plagiarism from both the Talmud and the Bible, antisemitic, misogynous, violent, mistake ridden, contradictory, Arab Supremacist INVENTION is insane too.

It is certainly Obama but it is many others as well, including Huma Abedin, with her family connections. Her family would have terminated her with extreme prejudice for dishonoring them when she married Weiner- had she not been part of the master plan to establish the caliphate in the United States.. If Huma Abedin were not an attractive woman from a rich and influential Saudi family McCain and the others would not be defending her. Money talks, especially when accompanied by sex as demonstrated by the senile old horndog McCain.
Michelle Bachmann deserves a medal. She is a truly courageous patriot.

Anyone who thinks Bush handed Obama the election is really not paying attention. The media, foreign powers, global elites and the banking system agreed on Obama long before the election. For eight years. Minimum.

Bush was so bad you want his UN rep as Secretary of State? Is war with Iran on your agenda? Neocons are all the same.

Obama has been heavily influenced by what Paul Johnson called the ‘Bandung Generation’ – that first generation of post-colonial leaders who were given moral authority based on their skin color and the guilt over the system they replaced. Although Obama’s extremism has been somewhat tempered by either the limits of the American executive, or more likely, having to get re-elected, his ideology is certainly influenced by that third-world mix of Euro socialism, Islam and Marxism.

Describing Sukarno, Johnson wrote: “He too was devoid of administrative skills. But he had the gift of words. Faced with a problem, he solved it with a phrase. Then he turned the phrase into an acronym, to be chanted by crowds of well-drilled illiterates.” This is Obama – the Bandung politician.

Problem is when you ask most Americans to put a name to the concept of Foreign Affairs Romney doesn’t really seem to come to mind. I’m not sure it that’s done by design or that he is trying to run on the economy. I can’t name one single foreign policy position that he has taken publicly besides his support of Israel (It’s still a good position but I don’t know what he means by it either). The thought of four more years of our current policy is almost too much to bear, but I don’t know what the GOP has in store either. Who’s coming back? Joshua Bolten? Mitch Daniels? Andrew Card? Condi? Richard Armitage? Robert Zoellick?

Of course you missed my point, my quip about the Turks, (your ex-allies?), was to irk you. In characteristic style you ignored the gist of my post, latched on to the tree and missed the forest.

From the beginning, see #13.

The Syrians were very accommodating in matters of Sunni Islamic terrorism.

From my perspective Sunni extremism is as bad as Shia extremism. You are fixated on the Iranian threat. Probably because you fear the development of a nuclear weapon by the Iranians. Although I agree this would not be a positive development, it is no immediate threat to the US. It will be dealt with when the time comes.

Nations have interests and can be enemies one day and allies the next, depending on the circumstances.

“Nations have interests and can be enemies one day and allies the next, depending on the circumstances” … it’s always nice to converse with someone who doesn’t mind heaving some platitudes onto the board.

“You are fixated on the Iranian threat. Probably because you fear the development of a nuclear weapon by the Iranians. Although I agree this would not be a positive development (do you really think so? Hey, don’t be hasty) it is no immediate threat to the US. It will be dealt with when the time comes” … who says it will be dealt with … Obama? Once out-law, revisionist regimes acquire nuclear weapons (N. Korea, Pakistan) it becomes much more difficult to deal with them for a number of reasons.

Hey jgets, why don’t you explain your attempt at snark by referring to the Turks as my “ex-allies” and suggesting to David Goldman (@46) that he try to find some German manufactured soap? Come on, man-up and let it all hang-out … no guts, no glory!

Hello.
I’ve been in Thailand for eight years and when I visited America earlier this year I felt gloom in the air. I was happy to get back to Thailand. I am 52 years old and have never been this worried about the future of America. We have the worst and most dangerous President in my lifetime.And I reemember Carter! What if he wins again? I will certainly vote. I just hope there is enough of us left who love freedom.Good wishes all.

I, so-to-speak, sign in after a night of repose with a question for understanding directed at David Goldman. The political campaign against Obama needs an overall strategy embrassing tactical decisions, some to do and some not to do. The inquiry by Bachmann & Co directed at a possible unsavory link between Adelin and H. Clinton seems to fall in your analysis under a “tactic” not to do, at least at this moment. The reason for this is that it deflects the REAL and EFFECTIVE critique that should me publically directed at Obama unto secondary players, and even then the case is weak as it stands. I have accepted this Goldman thesis. HOWEVER, the thesis does allow directing attention way from Obama if there is a “smoking gun”, not just some circumstantial evidence. “Smoking gun” is a metaphor and as such needs precision in concrete, real application. Without “precision” the participants in the Comments could be engaged in a verbal dispute without recognizing it. The question, the background to which I am recapitulating previous discussion, has to do with what is meant by “smoking gun”.

Patrick Poole has a lead article in PJM entitled “Rep. Keith Ellison Rewrites History on His Muslim Brotherhood CAIR Ties”. At least on a prima facie basis, Poole seems to have developed a very convincing case for my little section in the court of public opinion. It would motivate me to be politically active against Ellison if I were a voter in his state. Question: Does the type of exposé evident in this article correspond to a “smoking gun” category or is the article, despite its marshalling of evidence, just too circumstantial and time consuming for a tactical focusing of political energies, say, in a campaign to de-elect Rep. Ellison in the upcoming elections. Ellison is not Obama, that is clear. I am merely seeking an analogy so that I might understand the Goldman doctrine. If Bachmann & Co could construct an argumentation re Clinton/Adelin with the same power of persuasion as the Poole argumentation, would that constitute a “smoking gun”? Or is the Poole-type argumenation just too long for effective imagery in a political campaign? Quite concrete, should the Repulican opponent to Ellison make use of a Poole-like exposé?

Mr. Goldman, you have let loose passionated discussions. Some germane to your thesis. Many too emotional for intellectual evaluation (though the feelings are not foreign to me). Indeed, the “simple” thesis presented inspired deflections in to a plethora of discussions, many only tangential to your “simple” thesis. Somehow the point of campaign tactics gets “defected” into often interesting, but almost irrelant remarks. So, for my part, I am seeking with my question more precision to your dissatisfaction with Bachmann & Co’s tactics.

…….and to underscore your lucid point, there’s an example of a loose cannon splintering up the decks:

“…….Now Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin—whose family, Bachmann claims, is vaguely connected to the Muslim Brotherhood—has been threatened by a New Jersey man. Abedin is under police protection following the threat, and the man—a Muslim—has been questioned, the New York Post reports………”

Addendum: I just read Robert Spencer’s “McCarthyism and Mohamed Elibiary”. Spencer presents a pesuasive case against the trustworthiness of a specific person, Elibary, welcomed into the Obama administration, etc. Is the type of analysis by Spencer something fine for the pages of conservative journals and websites, but better not played up in the public campaign against Obama? For afterall, Obama literally invites into the WH Islamic extremists or Brotherhood types and this is quite easily put into campaign imagery which, thereby, portends electorial effectiveness. That I can tactically understand. But, what are the limits for the tactic? When are exceptions to be made?

I do hope I am not pressing you too much. All too many of the comments evince a lack of understanding or a missing appreciation of what grounds your critique of Bachmann & Co. Alas, some become even bitter in tone. As mentioned I read as a college student all of McCarthy’s speechs, books pro and con McCarthy. Whatever “McCarthyism” might have developed into (particularly as distored by the MSM), the point of departure of Sen. McCarthy was the obvious pro-Soviet influence in the State Dept. and elsewhere in FDR’s government. And such influence contributed to the betrayal of Eastern Europeans by FDR’s give aways to Stalin. McCarthy and a Congressional Committee asked the questions and sought answers. Burnham’s “The Web of Subversion” was possible because it was based on such investigations. But, I note, McCarthy’s pursuit of truth ended with his demeanment and, I suspect, also ended his good health. The whole fight about McCarthy also deflected criticism from other issues of the day. I do not wish to see Bachmann & Co subject to the same destructive dynamics. Spencer is use to it and, since he writes for PJM, eventually PJM will be accused, using guilt by association, of the “sins” of Spencer. Be prepared!

I, from distant Germany, attentively examine the advice of trusted, because proven, analysists. You are one such source. Your thesis of the “smoking gun” is correct, but not precise. In terms of Poole’s presentation and Spencer’s “McCarthy”-like (and I used the term with approval) examination of the status of Elibiary, do we have a “smoking gun” or just a half empty “water pistol”? I am desperately trying to determine the limits, the “Grenzfall”, within which your critique of Bachmann & Co finds its substantiation and its limits.

Joe Lieberman’s probably being blackmailed by the Obama folks, so don’t expect any independent comments from him.

Keep an eye on Grover Norquist. A fellow-traveler of radical Muslims, might his “pledge” be, not just a conservative means of preventing tax increases, but a sinister ruse to keep Congress stalemated, prevent a budget compromise and promote the fiscal collapse of the United States????

Yes you have a valid point here but this president also has incredible connections to American Communists and that was never looked into because of the McCarthyism label. As much as I think McCarthy’s tactics were off key to say the least he DID have a credible point that, through Venona and other archives, we now know he was like 98% accurate in his his accusations and he was only going after Communists that worked at the Government. So I think it is proper that if there IS a question it should be vetted. Did the Clinton White House not try to put one of Castro’s top and Hottest agents high up in the Dept. of Defense? I think the Clinton’s judgement runs far into the “That ought to be looked into” catigory, just look at the papers Sandy Burger snuk out, oops that’s right no one ever saw just what he took, gee I’m confident in who Hillary or Bill picks.

The Koran concerns Muhammad, who eventually was expelled from Mecca and then turned into an armed force conqueror and came back. The early-life verses have that peace & love flavor. The Later Verses are more blood & guts with any means. So-called Jihadists are Later-Verse Enthusiasts. Moderate Muslims, if there is such a thing, are Early Versers who totally shun the Later Verses.

Being a Muslim is like being in the army. A basic Muslim thing is allegiance to the Koran of Allah as superseding all allegiance to anything else, like a non-religious government or to any non-Koranic man-made thing or organization. In the army, some troops are RA-All-The-Way, STRAC dudes volunteering for everything and lusting for Airborne Ranger stuff. Most all the other soldiers do an adequate spit shine and a do a good job. They surreptitiously slump inside their fatigue uniforms in formation while appearing as standing straight, and would never think of getting their fatigues tailored for enhanced visual effect. Most Muslims do not want to do all that Jihad stuff personally, but will do so if asked. Jihad is on their Things to Do – Someday list.

As Muslim countries wiggle out from under varieties of authoritarian rule, the question is whether they can retain themselves in the Early Verses and be nice, or whether the Later Verse Enthusiasts will gradually acquire force and gradually get into varieties of Jihad activities on various levels.

The answer is becoming apparent. Despite our actions, they are slouching toward the performance goals sought by North Korea. Now there are other questions.

Our recent coping with things in Iraq-Afghanistan has the same efficiency as British efforts to deal with the unpleasantness in the North American Colonies. The military calculates what it would take. Realizing the politicians would be horrified, they cut it down to a skin-of-the-teeth request. The politicians receive that, are horrified anyway, and cut it by 30-40 percent more than that. When that decimated program turns into wreckage, others are richly blamed. For example, at Saratoga, Gen. Burgoyne was not really at fault for losing. If anything it was Gen. Simon Fraser disregarding orders from the high command and getting himself killed. The high command told the officer corps that American riflemen are rare, but if any are present then they will hit you with their first shot at 200 yards and some can reach out to over 300 yards so stay back and dress humble. Fraser was tarted up like the King’s carriage, and came under sniper fire at around 300 yards and did not leave. He also violated general knowledge by having a big breakfast. He got shot below the sternum, in the abdomen and his stuffed guts were ruptured rather than empty and being capable of being pushed aside by a low-velocity ball. Fraser was talented but not cautious. The British had no other way to cope with the industrially advanced Colonial rifle, unlike any on the Continent at that time. Their numbers were below skin-of-teeth level and they had no ability to absorb any mistakes or deficiencies. There was too much brilliance on the rebel side and they had a few proficient riflemen from the milieu of firearms freedom to add to their mass of muskets. Otherwise, The US and Britain would look a bit different today.